10 Rally Crashes That Might Give You PTSD

Twisted metal, broken bones and shattered dreams.

When a car rockets through narrow, winding dirt roads at over 100 mph, something is bound to go wrong. When rally cars squirt from zero to 60 mph in two seconds, there is plenty of room for error, and although these drivers are among the best in the world, everyone makes mistakes (at least that's what Mom told us). Fortunately, our friend Mr. Rollcage has ensured that many spectacular crashes result in no more than cuts, bruises and financial loss. Here are some of the most spectacular we've ever seen.

Rally Nehoda

Spontaneous combustion is the perfect way to end a barrel roll. Or, the most horrifying way. Watch here.

2012 X-Games Los Angeles

Sometimes, the X-Games get too X-treme. In L.A., Toomas approached cautiously and undershot the landing ramp, smashing into the ramp face and landing buttered side down. For all the drama, the driver suffered only a fractured ankle and bruising; he’ll live to smash again. Watch here.

2012 Neste Oil Rally Finland

An eternity of rolls, and then silence. The culprit? Too much speed and a loose surface. The humans emerged unscathed, but assume both the driver and co-driver are going to watch where they swing their rear ends from now on. Watch here.

What happens when a heavily modified Evo understeers off of Pikes Peak? The total dissolution of a Mitsubishi. By the time Jeremy’s car comes to rest, the Evo is primarily a roll cage, its passengers more shaken than a Bond beverage. Watch here.

2005 Rally America National Championship, Colorado Cog Rally

If barrel rolls were a type of sushi, we’d be really full after watching this video—it’s essentially the Deluxe Sushi Love Boat For Two of wrecks. Watch here.

Car Jump World Record (not a race)

Looking to embrace the phrase “go big or go home,” Guerlain Chicherit instead went big and went to the hospital. Honestly, this distance record jumps looks more like an effort to do the most consecutive flips: we counted around twelve. So, he has that going for him, which is nice. Watch here.

2010 WRC Rally Finland

This video gives Travis Pastrana’s crash in 2005 a run for its money. After coming over a crest, the Subaru clips a corner and is sent into a fit of involuntary horizontal pirouettes—not since Black Swan has ballet been so terrifying. Watch here.

2014 Rally Haute Senne

Watch first-hand an experience you hope never to have: running out of road with no brakes to keep you from unwilling congress with a hay bale. Watch here.

2015 Dakar Rally

The narrator of this video is rightfully agitated, so stick with mute. Here, a Dakar Rally truck flies into the frame in a spectacular fashion, going end-over-end, then bursting into flame on landing. Luckily, both drivers were intact, if lightly smoked. Watch here.

[BONUS] 2014 Sigdals Rally, Norway

This video is downright cinematic: a rally-prepared Ford Fiesta, dipping down into a ditch then sailing through the air and out of view. The final frame? A forlorn, smoking wheel, shorn from its suspension. Marius Aasen and co-driver Marlene Engan walked away; the car was (knekkebrød) toast. Watch here.